3136

VETOES

based upon a judgment that it fails to comply with the
legislative intent of the law authorizing its promulgation.
This can only help to thwart the purpose of the State
Documents Law by negating the public input which it
currently guarantees. In those instances in which a
majority of the members of the General Assembly finds that
an agency rule has exceeded the legislative grant to that
agency, the General Assembly can and should pass a law to
correct the situation, and the Chief Executive will then
execute that policy judgment.

My objections to House Bill 619 also are grounded in my
reading of the provisions of Article II, Section 17 of the
Maryland Constitution. It provides that in order to "guard
against hasty or partial legislation and encroachment of the
Legislative Department upon the co-ordinate Executive and
Legislative Departments...", each bill passed by the General
Assembly shall be presented to the Executive for his
decision to sign it into law or to veto it. The power of
gubernatorial veto was granted to the Executive of the State
when the Constitution of 1867 was adopted by the people.
The purpose of that grant is, as stated in the Constitution,
to guard against the encroachment of the Legislature upon
the Executive branch of government. I believe that the
power of a legislative committee to disapprove a rule is the
equivalent of making law. It is the equivalent of a policy
decision and therefore constitutes legislation.

The contrary argument is that such a disapproval of a
rule is not law making because the Executive could have
vetoed the legislation which established the legislative
veto mechanism. A second argument is that the disapproval
is not new legislation, but a guarantee that the original
legislative policy is fulfilled. As for the first
contention, it assumes that the Executive, by signing the
legislative veto mechanism into law, has waived any future
objections to the exercise of the legislative veto. I
cannot subscribe to that theory. As for the second
argument, I believe that the Legislature may guard against a
violation of its original policy decision by means of the
safeguards afforded by the current provisions of the State
Documents Law and by the oversight function performed by the
AELR Committee. Finally, if a policy decision is violated,
the General Assembly may pass and present to the Executive a
bill to correct the situation, and the Executive may act in
accordance with the mandate of Article II, Section 17.

The Maryland Constitution mandates that the Chief
Executive manage the Executive Branch of government. In my
judgment, the duties and functions of the Legislative and
Executive Branches are clearly delineated in the
Constitution. I believe that House Bill 619 oversteps the
boundary drawn by the people between these two branches of
our government by injecting the Legislature into the role of
managing the Executive Branch.